I'm beginning to feel like K-Mart. I am getting excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas already. I know Halloween hasn't gotten here yet, but I think I'll just skip it this year. Frankly, I don't remember all this excitement about Halloween when I was a kid. Now Halloween is as big as Christmas as far as decorations are concerned. People cover their front lawns with inflatable decorations as big as the Macy's parade, and festoon their houses with all manner of colored lights and fake cobwebs.
When I was still trick or treating, I think the only decoration we had was what we planned to wear that night as we went from house to house around the block. Usually I was wearing something totally rediculous, like my ballerina outfit. My mom tried to talk me out of it. I almost froze in my skimpy pink tutu and tights. I never tried to be scary, I always just wanted to be pretty. Let's face it, I just didn't get it. We never decorated our house, or wore costumes to answer the door. I think we even used plain brown grocery bags to collect the candy in. Even our bags of candy were a source of displeasure since my mother never wanted us to eat it anyway. So, where's the fun?
There is another bigger reason Halloween was never my favorite holiday. To begin with, I'm a scardy cat, and the whole concept made me want to run to my mother's skirts. Who wants to answer your front door to a bunch of strangers in masks who threaten to trick you if they don't like what you give them? Not me! So...now that I am an adult, I can just go ahead and admit that Halloween scared me silly and I still see nothing pretty or appealing about a mean looking black cat or cobwebs or a pointy witch's hat and broom. I'll even admit I hated The Wizard of Oz. The flying monkeys terrified me and still do. I consider it my first attempt to watch a horror movie. The fact that I grew up in the middle of Oklahoma where blowing away in a tornado was a very real possibility didn't help either. Most of the time I was sitting with my eyes covered by my hands. They shouldn't make children watch such stuff.
So this year, I'll skip Halloween thank you, and move right on to Thanksgiving and Christmas, where nothing is scary and everything is just....pretty.
